The modern day automobile has basically made travel over Northfield Avenue a seemly effortless task. The passage from valley to mountain top in a few minutes is only limited by traffic or the light at the Gregory Avenue which interrupts your momentum. This, however, was not always the case. A century ago difficulties could be encountered in making such a trip on Northfield Avenue. The hardships have become completely obscured if not eliminated by 21st century standards. Dangers will always exist despite how safe or routine it may seem but for the most part we have come to take a trouble free passage for granted. Northfield Avenue today is a well maintained road that follows an old traveled route once used by stagecoaches. It was one of the original roads over the mountain and today is part of the Essex County Highway System. Before 1900 most of the roads in West Orange were hardly more then dirt wagon trails. They were either dusty or muddy making travel difficult and uncertain. Passage over these mountain roads could be scenic and picturesque but at times more dangerous then practical. In 1863 the new West Orange Township Committee recognized these shortcomings and took action to raise funds for much needed improvements and maintenance.

            As a result of these visionary efforts by the 1880s Northfield Avenue was macadamized. Perhaps crude and insufficient by today's standards but adequate for the horse and buggy traffic of the day. It was 25 feet in width and had a ravine on each side for drainage that at some places due to changes in elevation could be as much as twelve feet deep. A single wooden rail fence about three feet high ran along both sides of the road serving as an early guard rail. It however proved to be inadequate as the dangers of traveling the Northfield Avenue of yesteryear is best illustrated in the story of Charles Delmonico’s sad death.

           On the morning of January 14, 1884 two young boys Edward Peer age 13 of Scotland Road, Orange and Franklin Hollum age 17 of Jefferson Street, Orange left to go rabbit hunting on Northfield Avenue in West Orange for the day. At the time it was sparsely populated and considered rural although only just a few miles from Orange. The two boys had started out on their day of adventure accompanied by a large dog about 9:30 in the morning. They went straight up Northfield Avenue continuing on their walk up Main Street from Orange. On beginning the ascent the boys separated. Hollum taking the dog on the left side and the younger Peer to the right side by himself. The revines provided drainage from the road surface. After a heavy rain the water would flow down the ravines carrying with it small stones, shrubbery, and rubbish. In January it also carried a fair amount of melting snow and ice. As the boys walked along the revines they each carried a long stick. They used it to poke around in the underbrush looking for small game. They had gone nearly a mile up Northfield Avenue when Peer came across something unusual opposite the entrance to the estate of Davis Collamore on Northfield Avenue once located near the current day intersection with Gregory Avenue. There Peer shoved aside a small bush when he was stunned and frightened to discover a man laying face up with a muddy face and blue lips and his hair tangled and matted with ice. Once they realized what they had discovered the two boys ran back down the mountain to notify Police Chief McChesney about what they had found. Upon further investigation it turned out to be the body of Charles Delmonico, for whom the Delmonico Steak is named. Why he was in West Orange on Northfield Avenue remains a mystery but he had apparently fell backward over the rail, down the revine to his death, and into a sad and forgotten chapter of West Orange history.